The man with the golden deely-boppers.

Putting some of my children to bed I found a pair of deely-boppers in the wrong place.

'Who's are these deely-boppers?' I asked.

' I think they're mine' said my eldest. 'That's a good name for them, Daddy' she added.

'That's what they're called' I said. 'They've always been called deely-boppers'...

They've always been called deely-boppers since they were first invented, probably in the late 70s or early 80s. I'll look it up on google in a minute. I wondered to myself who had invented them and who had the brilliant idea of calling them 'deely-boppers'. If I had a penny for every set of deely-boppers that have ever been sold I could probably retire comfortably and devote myself to a life of leisure and eco-socialist campaigning. I wouldn't have as much money as the man who invented the barcode. He really is rich. My brother-in law used to work in a restaurant in Hereford owned by barcode-man. He had visited Hereford and thought to himself 'There aren'd any decent restaurants around here', and so he just set one up for his own amusement, or rather paid other people to set it up for him. This is barcode-man doing all this, not my brother-in-law, you understand?

Of course is I was really an eco-socialist I would share my deely-bopper wealth with my fellow workers and creatives which would reduce my personal income considerably meaning that I would have to work again and would have less time to devote to eco-socialism. Anyway, whatever....

As I thought about it a bit longer I realised that I'm now in my early 40s, approaching my mid-40s, and although I like to think I'm full of good ideas I've probably never done anything nearly as creative and/or successful as inventing deely-boppers or even inventing a name like 'deely-boppers'. And, lets face it, deely-boppers are a bit crap, and the name deely-boppers make them sound even worse than they are. Even in the hey-day of the deely-bopper craze, the zenith as it were (or is it the nadir I can never remember which is which), even in their hey-day deely-boppers were naff, so naff in fact that it made them everso slightly cool. So all I need is one really really good idea and to have it arrive at the right time, and then I can relax like the fellow or lady who invented deely-boppers.

Maybe I could make a fortune by writing a blog? If you suspect I could be doing something more useful than musing on deely-boppers, don't worry, all this creative energy was generated while doing the hoovering. I think that's how Dyson got his inspiration too, isn't it?

(Footnote: Stephen Askin invented the original deely bobber in 1981, total sales by August 1982 were estimated at 2 million, with Askin getting 5% of the wholesale price! Source: WIkipedia)